A Tesla Owner Speaks

I’ve been accused of being unfair to Tesla, that I am infected by personal animosity toward Musk (true; I loathe rent seekers) and a general dislike of electric cars (not true; I merely dislike the way subsidies have distorted the market for them).

Well, here’s some owner testimony for you. This guy bought a new Model S – an $80,000 car. He was champing at the bit to get the keys. He most definitely did not have any ax to grind.

Listen to what he has to say about his car:

This does not bode well for Elon – whose company this week had to ‘fess up to a hemorrhagic cash bleed – $671 million, the worst yet.

Wait. It is going to get even worse.

Many of the “issues” detailed by the unhappy owner in the video – swirls in the paint, poor panel fitment, squeaks and rattles – may not seem major to the casual reader.

And wouldn’t be . . . if it were 1978.

In those days, it was actually common for even luxury-brand cars to have swirls in the paint, poor panel fitment, squeaks and rattles. The general quality control was terrible and people had much lower expectations. Cars routinely fell apart – or began to – within sight of the dealer’s lot. And within five years of leaving the lot, almost all of them were looking hairy and feeling worse.

The problem for Tesla is it’s 2018.

Such things are no longer tolerated . . . by people who buy $15,000 Hyundais.

Or even by Teslians, for that matter – who are, after all, affluent people. People with money don’t like feeling gypped – and won’t put up with it, even when they desperately want the car to be everything it was advertised to be.

The new ’78 Chevette! Er… Model 3…

The swirls in the paint, the poor panel fitment, the squeaks and rattles – all betoken fundamentally slipshod quality control and poor engineering. If they can’t get trim lined up correctly, what about things more complex – and critical?

If the car in the video above were not a sainted Tesla – if it were an IC-engined $15,000 economy car and forget an$80,000 luxury-sport sedan – the problems described would be (first) a public relations catastrophe and (next) the probable end for the car, possibly the brand.

Consumer Reports, Automotive News and every car journalist in the country would savage the thing. The damage would almost certainly be irreparable because in the car business, as in the love business, trust is like a fresh piece of paper. Once you crumple it up, there’s no way to un-crumple it.

Examples abound.

One that comes to mind is the Cadillac Allante – RIP. Like the Tesla, it was beautiful to look at and touted a plethora of technology. GM had the bodywork farmed out to Italian exotic car crafter Pininfarina – and had the partially assembled bodies shipped across the ocean 747 airliners modified for this specific purpose.

GM promised a lot.

Less was delivered.

The cars suffered from erratic quality control and sub-par engineering. The convertible tops sometimes leaked and always rattled. There were issues with the “high tech” electronic systems.

Sound familiar?

Well, probably not – because the general media and even the automotive media has been unbelievably indulgent toward Tesla. For basically the same reason that it is almost impossible to speak ill in the workplace of a differently abled Cablinasian in the midst of transitioning – no matter how awful his/her/their work happens to be.

One will find the occasional story expressing some much-couched doubts about the car – or about Tesla, the company. But these are whitecaps on an otherwise calm ocean. All is well. Teething pains. The range is always increasing, the recharge times decreasing. The sun will come out, tomorrow . . . bet your bottom dollar.

Underneath, however, the waters are roiling.

Elon is having more and more trouble explaining away the constant, increasingly predictable juggernaut of misfires and miscues – including the extremely embarrassing production delays of the endlessly hosanna’d Model 3, which has been adulated by the car press before the car press even got its hands on one. Whatever Elon says – whatever Elon promises – is accepted with wide-eyed gratefulness, almost like a seal anticipating a mackerel only the snack never actually finds its way to the beast’s salivating maw.

The Model 3’s failure to launch may well be due to the same problems that plague the Model S – but which Elon knows will be much, much harder to talk away or cover up, because the Model 3 is supposed to be a mass-market car, built in volume. It will be hard to shut up that many mouths.

While the car press may continue to cover for Elon, people used to the near perfection of $15,000 Hyundais – trim that isn’t falling off at delivery, paint that doesn’t need to be manually buffed out by a detailer to efface shoddy application, doors that close properly, the utter absence of squeaks and rattles – are going to prove a harder con for Elon.

The only question remaining is: When the whole thing implodes – as is inevitable – will the taxpayers be bayoneted in the back to pick up the tab for that, too?

. . .

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293 COMMENTS

I just learnt something very interesting: If a Tesla is just sitting, it will lose 2%-5% of it’s charge PER DAY, just sitting. Imagine the ramifications of that if there were millions of ’em- ‘specially in big cities, like NYC where one’s car may sit all week and only get a little use on the weekend; or where it may be driven 2 miles to the train station and sit for 10 or 12 hours, and then be driven 2 miles home. It could have lost more of it’s charge just sitting parked, than it took to get to the train station and back. How “efficient”!

Nunzio,
Every battery on the planet exhibits self-discharging behavior. Hopefully you benefit from learning what anyone with experience with using batteries have always learned from doing so. Having picked up numerous truck tractors in holding lots, I have learned that their batteries are usually lucky to start them without assistance. If assistance is required, replacement will be soon.

Yeah, Bill- I figured that out when I was about 10. They don’t lose 5% per day from just sitting though. I can let my lithium tool batteries sit for a month, and then use ’em, and i doubt they’ve lost a TOTAL of 5% of their charge- not 5% PER DAY.

The difference is, that there’s all sorts of crap in the Tesla that’s “always on”, which draws down the battery far more than if the battery were just sitting on a shelf.

And all lithium, or any other kind of battery, have different self-discharge rates caused by a multitude of differences beyond the chemistry used. Some batteries have a higher discharge rate than 5% a day when they are unconnected to any external drain. It is pretty sad that my Chrome has less external battery drain than a Tesla, but then, it only cost $200. What kind of a charge does a Tesla have outside of its batteries?

Bill, you are missing the point! It doesn’t matter WHY the batteries lose so much of their charge so quickly, but rather, that they do.

Since EVs are touted as being so wonderful and “green” and all of that- but with such energy leakage, if there were millions of ’em on the raod, even just sitting for a day or two, just think of all the energy that would vanish into thin air.

Elon Musk is getting rich on subsidies and tax deductions. He could care less if Tesla makes any money. Musk got a low interest loan from the feds and is loaning Tesla the money at the highest rate allowed.

Nunzio, I’ve long forgotten my original umbrage, and hope I didn’t burn too many umbridges with you, because I really need my olde kentucky homeboy right now, I screwed my own pooch, and I’ve been too bamboozled to realize it til just this painfully sharp crack of high noon now.https://youtu.be/flYfk-46MPs?t=46

You said

\Then what is the point of Libertarianism? It’s all about personal freedom.

Personal being the key word. How much is having a job and a paycheck enslaving unrelated innocent others. I’d say 5% enslaving as a rough guess, but it depends on the job I suppose, it could go much higher.

\Sure, many do not value such a commodity- and they should also be free to enslave themselves if they so choose- but if WE do that, and also fail to raise those whom we are responsible for to value freedom, then what is the point to our Libertarianism?

I only seek to write and imagine about freedom. I am like the Kurt Vonnegut of freedom. Herr Kurt never claimed to be better than anyone else, just more amusing and philosophical maybe, if that. Not everything resolves to points. There are also line, polygons, and even spheres, like the beachball with a photo of the moon printed on it, that is a sphere. Spheres have no points, right?

\One does not have to be isolated in a corner. Quite frankly, producing a product; performing a service or practicing a trade; cultivating the land; trading and bartering; etc. those things are MORE participatory than showing up at some office of a multinational corp, or being stashed away in a cubicle; or even doing the same things for someone else’s business.

100% agree, and I support Alexander Hamilton’s exposition of America in this regard. We are land improvers, that is the secret of the third of fourth largest country in the world, is all our variously improved and modified land, that makes us all so silver mountains of shekels rich from sea to oily slick shiny sea.

\Freedom is all about living with the consequences and rewards of our own choices and actions. Pretty much everything in this present system is geared toward getting around those constraints; so that if one is a part of that system, they are neither free themselves, nor are they able to deal with others as their circumstances and actions dictate, but instead must follow some pre-defined course of action based instead upon the orders of others and their goals and desires- just as a cop or soldier does. And just like the cop or soldier, or any order-follower, they must delegate their own autonomy, and that of those with whom they interact.

Yeah, just yesterday, I got a personal crapton of consequences dropped on the shriveled dried up raisin that still remains of my once juicy grape of a conscience.

\Following orders is antithetical to freedom- both that of your own, and everyone else’s.

Mój Kolega, what is all this talk of burning umbridges? I live under that umbridge! 😉

Wait….wait… this is getting unnecessarily complex. All I’m espousing is the natural relationship of things, unperverted by the existence of the coercive force known as goobermint. e.g. a free market; and private property; and self-determination/autonomy.

People could practice voluntary communism if they wanted to (of course, it wouldn’t work, nor last long, without their ability to rob the productive…) or live as a hermit in a Unabomber-style shack (I kinda prefer that one) or whatever.

So, the only thing preventing us from having that free market, and personal autonomy- regardless of what one would care to do with their personal autonomy- is the existence of an artificial non-free market, and restrictions placed upon us by those who organize and use coercion to usurp our autonomy and property.

The only way we will ever be totally free of that coercive system, is if enough people stop believing in the legitimacy of that system, and stop perpetuating it. But if we as Libertarians can’t even do that, and practice such values as much as we are able in our own lives and spheres of authority, then we are only dealing in fantasy, and in-fact, giving free reign to all of the coercive violent manipulators.

So I don’t quite “get” what you are saying. Are you advocating armchair Libertarianism- where one just plays with the mental concept of the idea, much like an armchair quarterback- but only deals with the theory and fantasy, but fully integrating with the “system” in everyday life?

Nunzio,
You are arguing for one absolute against another absolute in a situation where neither is tenable.
There are two ways of espousing libertarianism. One is as a direction to work towards, and the other is an unachievable ideal.
I have found that the former is far more useful than the latter, as the vast majority of the best libertarian thinkers have. Doug Casey lives closer to the ideal than anyone else I’m aware of, and he has done more than anyone else to put himself in his enviable position. I have been fortunate to watch him do it, even though I lack the motivation to follow. I have found that planned penury is the more effective strategy.

I aspire to be half Vonnegut and half Diogenes and half Theodore Honey like in No Highway in the Sky (1951).

Surely I’m a complete failure.

Diogenes/Quotes

What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others.

The foundation of every state is the education of its youth.

Dogs and philosophers do the greatest good and get the fewest rewards.

We have two ears and one tongue so that we would listen more and talk less.

Blushing is the color of virtue.

As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task.

Man is the most intelligent of the animals – and the most silly.

Why not whip the teacher when the pupil misbehaves?

No man is hurt but by himself.

I have nothing to ask but that you would remove to the other side, that you may not, by intercepting the sunshine, take from me what you cannot give.

🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄

Differences between a normal friend and a Polish friend

A normal friend will have many other friends.
A Polish friend knows and gets along with many people, but only has two or three real friends.

A normal friend tells you a lot about his personal life within the first few hours of meeting him for the first time.
A Polish friend will keep his secrets for as long as he can and only reveal them during a drunken night. You will never speak of them again.

A normal friend calls you a friend after knowing you for a few weeks and getting a beer twice.
A Polish friend will only call you his friend after knowing you for years and after you’ve helped him move out of his apartment and attended his grandmother’s funeral.

A normal friend wishes you a happy birthday and hands you a gift on your 18th birthday.
A Polish friend hits you with a belt on your buttocks 18 times.

A normal friend wants to grab a drink and a snack in a bar.
A Polish friend tells you he prefers to stay at home and invites you over. You come planning to order a pizza, but find beers in the fridge and a table full of snacks and meals ready for you.

A normal friend comes for a visit to your house and waits for you to offer him tea or coffee.
When a Polish friend comes over, he walks through the door and asks, “What do you have to eat?”

Your normal friend tells you your new haircut looks good on you, even if it doesn’t.
Your Polish friend goes “Wow, you look like you were run over by a lawn mower!”

A normal friend says “please.”
A Polish friend says, “Pass me the salt. Shut the door. Turn off the TV.”

A normal friend answers “Fine, thanks, you?” to the “How are you?” question.
A Polish friend starts making a list of everything that goes wrong for them that day: “It’s so cold and I lost my gloves, my hands are numb from the cold and I couldn’t find my bus ticket in my backpack and I got a fine.”

A normal friend buys champagne when they’re offered a promotion and calls up all his friends to celebrate.
A Polish friend only tells you about the promotion if you specifically ask how work is going. And even then, he’ll try to humbly downplay the importance of it. “Yeah, things are going well… Actually, I’ve just been offered a promotion, but it’s nothing big, I mean, I get a raise and a work car, so yeah… I’m content.”

A normal friend brings a couple of beers to a house party.
A Polish friend brings a couple of bottles of vodka and insists you take it in shots.

A normal friend emails you and Facebooks you regularly if you’re living away.
A Polish friend won’t email you for 8 months, but next time you see each other, you will pick up right where you left off.

A normal friend will have many other friends.
A Polish friend knows and gets along with many people, but only has two or three real friends.

That Dio-Gene is pretty sharp! But he sounds Greek! I’d rather have a Polock friend.

A normal friend says: “It’s three O’clock, how you’re not here at the restaurant?”
A Polish friend says: “It’s three O’clock; do you know what time it is?”

A normal friend comes to a blinking red light; stops, and proceeds when safe to do so.
A polish friend comes to a blinking red light, and stops…and then starts to go; then slams on the brakes; then starts to go again; then slams on the brakes again….

A normal friend sees a piece of dog crap and a paper bag on the porch, and thinks:”Somebody tried playing ding-dong-ditch”.
A Polish friend sees a piece of dog crap and a paper bag on the porch, and thinks: “We’re having Kaszanka, and Papa must’ve dropped his lunch!”.

Truck backing into an ally backed into the Shuttle, which was in the trucks blind spot. Truck probably did not have a backup camera. Passengers on the shuttle felt a human driver would have backed up to avoid an accident, the shuttle did not know what to do so it did nothing. Probably the truck’s fault.

(Assuming you are correct- but it sure doesn’t look that way from the pic)

A human driver simply could have beeped the horn, and likely avoided the crash.

That was a very simple, low-speed incident. Imagine the consequences in much more complex and high-speed sitchy-ations! People would die- and, just as with the desire to have electric cars at any cost…..FOR WHAT?

Never mind the ulterior political motives and all of that; but even on the surface level, if it’s not better/safer/cheaper…..what is the point? Oh…yeah…those ulterior motives- but people are so caught-up with the flashing lights and automatic do-dads that they fail to even notice the overt reasons for which these things seemingly exist, bear no relation to the reality.

What kind of abject self hating moron would by a Soviet Committee Bot driven car?

Forget the theory, only a cuck would wanna buy a car that would potentially sacrifice you to safe the lives of more people?

If I’m ever in the trolley problem situation where it’s me going off a cliff or a bunch of rosy cheeked school children getting banged up, I’m heading for the kiddos and trying to hit as few of them as possible so I can live.

It’s inhuman to wanna ride in a car that is gonna purposely going to kill you, for some imagined greater good.

determining cause and effect, and lessening or eliminating the chances that the same bad cause will be triggered another time in another place.

The 160 million Americans that are worth the same as only 3 people are incredibly useless, negatively useful in fact, and toxically harmful.

It’s fine for women and children to ask naive irrelevant questions, like “who is at fault” but it is not alright for grown ass men to say asking and answering such inanities is any kind of solution that will satisfice.

I know this guy who’s in his 90’s now, who drove trucks back before there were interstates or power steering…or even good roads. That was real trucking. Guess it’s in his blood- at his age, and now he regularly hops in his car and sets out and drives 1000 miles or two to visit people.

I grew up next door to a long-haul LTL driver who told me stories about his career being pretty much over before air-ride was heard of, let alone installed in the driver’s seat. They were also the guys who would stop and make sure someone was okay that was broken down on the side of the road. The easiest job I ever had was long-haul. I enjoyed driving construction trucks more, because it required more intelligence than keeping the truck between two lines, and problem-solving skills. The hardest thing that most long-haul drivers do is blind side their trucks into a parking space at the end of a day. I will freely admit to being the guy who looked for pull throughs in truck stops, especially after I started doing driveaway, because backing my van with a tractor was harder than a semi-trailer.

A bobtail is as easy to back as any other vehicle without a trailer. Imagine a pup as short as a E-150 van and you’ll understand. The difficulty isn’t caused by the shortness, but by the fact that the van wasn’t designed to be pushed backwards, because its steer tires countersteer.

Wow, I guess Musk[rat] has painted himself into such a corner, that it’s becoming obvious to everyone now. I’ve been seeing headlines every day now -not extolling the [non-existent] virtues of Tesla, but rather about how badly it is doing. Today I saw one mentioning how a large number of key Tesla execs are baling, like rats from a sinking ship- including the CFO. The most recent to jump ship was the head of battery engineering.

Sounds like this puppy’s going down, and everyone (‘cepting the most clueless) are starting to realize it.

Seriously, if your bidness were run by a guy who stated in all seriousness that he was going to colonize Mars in 4 years (or at all!) wouldn’t that be grounds for his nomination for membership on the rubber ranch? Only when one’s customer base is made up of starry-eyed leftist snowflakes, and one’s capital comes from redistributors of wealth, could someone say such a thing and not be carted away in a straight jacket.

Imagine how they would crucify him over that act now a days (the desert part that is)! Another comedian taken too soon. I wonder what he would be saying in 2017, if he was still living, that is if they allowed him a public forum anymore.

I’ve seen too many people over the years, when times were better/things easier- amass money; scrimp [what exactly is “scrimping”?] and save and invest to preserve a little nest-egg that they slaved to save for all of their life….only to get no benefit from it; to never get any joy from it; it’s only benefit to them was seeing numbers on paper; then they’d croak, and their rich kids or ungrateful relatives would get it all.

That being said, I got out of the obligatory gift giving/receiving customs over 30 years ago. What a relief!

The colossal waste of money was a relatively minor thing….but being free of the “politics” and emotional stresses of such things, is priceless!

It feels so much better when you give a gift, not because it was some expected obligatory occasion, but because you wanted to; and not receiving gifts which sit in a drawer for 30 years because you have too much/don’t have need for them; but can’t get rid of it because it’s too nice, and because Aunt Bertha gave it to you….

Oh, gosh…I could never go back!

Of all the money spent on me over the years….the “nice” gifts…. I’ve forgotten most- but one I remember- 33 years ago- which meant the most to me, was a magazine (Not a subscription…A magazine- one issue) and a box of Junior Mints…..

The closer it gets, the less likely I think it will be a pop instead of a long slow draindown. The first few days will be precipitous, then it will settle down into a moderately steep slope until it levels off below the established bottom.
The late Bob Chapman spoke to this with respect to the PM markets. He said that gold would go up $25 one day, and down $25 the next day. Then it would go up or down an additional $25 a day, then $50, then $100, then $200, by which time most of the traders with brains would have recognized the death throes.

I heard they imposed a bunch of rules [The SEC] to greatly hobble one’s ability to short…. Shame….we’re to the point where even the littlest guy could ride it all the way from the top floor to the basement and come out on top while others are jumping out the windurs…..

Once again the bottom line of the video review of the Tesla Model S is it is a fantastic car. Right now Tesla has the best software and design of any auto brand in the world. That in and of itself is an amazing achievement. The build quality issues are not as annoying as the shoddy software other makers put into their cars. For effs, sake GM can’t get ignition keys right while Tesla uses a cellphone/ key card system. GM is embarrassing by 20th century standards. Oh, and BMW is advising that you park your beemer outside until spontaneous fire issues are resolved.

It’s only “a fantastic car” if one’s main purpose for having such a car is virtue-signaling and greenie-weenie smuggism.

GM (and most other car companies) make equally abhorrent junk these days too.

App/card key? What is the point? How about a just-plain KEY? A fob, if you want to be fancy. I like being able to decide WHEN and IF I want to lock the car/unlock the car/ etc.

But then, what is the point of these cars? Seriously. Having emissions emitted at a remote location is no virtue. In fact, it is a crime, because it transfers the pollutants from those who are causing them to be generated, and from those who want to live in congested cities, to those who choose not to live under such conditions.

Felonius Gru is no more, now I’m just Michael Scott Steve Carrell in the office.

Kevin Spacey is no more as well. He’s been memory holed on accusations alone. So much for sanity and level headedness. Good bye Norma Jean Rockwell America I know longer know you though I’m your native son.

Just another unperson living in an uncountry on an unplanet I suppose.

I call Lady Liberty on the telephone my voice too rough with cigarettes
I sometimes feel I should just go home
But I’m dealing with a memory that never forgets

I love to hear her say my name especially when she say yes

I got herr body right now on my mind and I drunk myself blind
To the sound of old T-Rex
To the sound of old T-Rex, who’s next?

I want those feeble minded axes overthrown
I’m not into your passport picture I just like your nose
You welcome me with open arms and open legs
I know only fools have needs but this one never begs

I don’t really mind how much you love me
A little is really alright
When you say come over and spend the night
Tonight, tonight

I lay on the bed with you
We could make some book of records
Your dog keeps licking my nose
And chewing up all those letters
Saying you better
You better bet your life
You better love me, all the time now
You better shove me back into line now

I showed up late one night with a neon light for a visa
But knowing I’m so eager to fight can’t make letting me in any easier

I know that I’ve been wearing crazy clothes and I look pretty crappy
Sometime

But my body feels so good and I still sing a razor line everytime

And when it comes to all night living
I know what I’m giving
I’ve got it all down to a tee
And it’s free

You better bet your life
Or Miss America’s love will cut you just like a knife

My gap is forevermore bridged since I was 62 years 2 months old.
There are no pensions or retirement streams, just a $942 direct deposit on the 4th wednesday of each month until I disincarnate or SSA bankrupts.

My friend has been wanting to leave NY for a while, but was holding out because his wife would retire in 7 years and get a nice pension. I told him (10 years ago) just go…what you’ll lose in the value of your house after the impending RE crash on Long Island (where it will be especially bad- and was!) and what you pay in property taxes ($10K a year) and all of the other expenses- not to mention non-existent quality of life, even if she gets that pension, it’s not such a good deal.

Fast forward to now: The pension went bust a few years ago; the house lost about $150K in value…yada yada…they just sold it and are finally moving, only now are in a much worse position than if they would’ve gone 10 years ago.

AND, they’re now forced to buy at the top of the market where they’re going….so more losses ahead…. and ten years wasted, when they could’ve been enjoying themselves, and actually would have been better off.

Nunizo, that’s the great scam by financializing everything. Now it’s always about timing markets and trying out maneuver people who have insider information and are in the business so that they are good at it. People with legal leverage.

Normal people really don’t stand a chance. It’s all a giant scam to steal everyone’s productivity. They said slavery is no more, but it persists to this very day it just changed forms. The important thing is that all the value goes to the top and through the various parallel scams it does.

What’s the medical scam really but to take back everything a person earned in his lifetime and managed to keep?

In the end, Brent, it’s the brokers- be they stock or insurance or otherwise- who make the money regardless of all else.

At least that form of slavery is voluntary- or was, until Obongocare. What’s next, forcing us to buy stocks? (They stand about as much channce of getting me to do that, as they do of getting me to buy health “insurance”)- Oh, and lets not forget their mandatory retirement non-investment program- Socialist Security!

In a free market, you’d have buyers and sellers.

In a government-perverted market, we have brokers everywhere…to deal with all of the laws and taxes, and to take a cut- win, lose or draw.

You could say I’m guilty of a A Yogi Bearism.
You can never be down -200 the way you mean. The use of the word down precludes mere numerative operations, down demands that the numerative value be lower than it was before.

The minus sign designates the direction of the motion. Dropping by a negative amount is mutually exclusive. If it makes since, that would be cognitive dissonance in operation. I don’t have a smartphone, so texting anywhere is impossible. Street walking should be taxed like any other occupation.

Tesla’s “tech” is by no means the best. Several other car companies have phone/app access (BMW is one).

But the fundamental issue here is not one of “tech” – of cool new gadgets. Or ought not to be. Unless you believe that government should be milking the taxpayers to fund such, in which case why not just have a Soviet-style command economy and give the keys to the Treasury to Apple or Microsoft?

Electric cars were supposed to be about finding a way to reduce the cost of driving; instead, they have increased it. This is inarguable. You can talk about not having to change oil or buy gas all day long; in the end, the cost of the car itself negates any such savings. The least expensive – to the buyer – EV you can buy right now is the Nissan Leaf – which costs about $30k or about twice the cost of an IC-engined economy sedan such as a Nissan Versa. And the Leaf’s price is massively understated due to the subsidies. If it were not subsidized and had to be sold at a price that reflected its cost to manufacture, plus a reasonable profit, it would be in the range of $40k.

Some will disingenuously argue that the EV saves them money relative to a non-EV luxury sport car. Possibly. But if you are buying a luxury-sport car, then saving money on driving is a non sequitur, eh?

The fact is that because EVs cannot compete with IC cars on economy or practicality, they tout things such as “tech” – and acceleration and style.

Well, Lamborghinis and Porsches tout those things, too. Should those companies also be subsidized? Working people forced to pay taxes so that affluent people can drive them?

eric, the new word for today. Ok kids, how many subjects have you seen today you can aptly describe as being presented “Disingenuously”? Or would someone like to answer the corollary? Who can name a subject that isn’t disingenuously described. Just go to CNBC, FOX, MSNBC, etc. and start counting. You can quit when your head begins to spin.

As far as Tesla vs the others go, I know nothing. The author of the video says it is fantastic. I believe him. Especially in NYC and LA, where the 0.1% live, not having to fuel your car and get the oil changed is a big deal. Tesla is the best where it counts, NYC, LA, Shanghai, London, ect. Supposedly Tesla’s best market is Norway, which I don’t get.

I personally doubt Tesla will be able to produce the Model 3 fast and cheap enough. I suspect that Tesla won’t be able to meet production numbers by early 2019 when my options expire but will be able to convince people into thinking it is on the cusp of making money on each sale, so my options are iffy.

subsidized?

Tesla is clever at playing the system vaguely like defense contractors line up support for their wares by playing congressional delegations. If Senators and Representatives vote for it, Tesla gets it. That is how a republic works. That is why the sugar in my coffee is made from sugar beets, not sugar cane and high fructose corn crap even exists. Subsidies are not some special thing invented for Tesla, they are how the system works.

An opera singer turned restauranteur I worked for in the 80s was from Italy and spoke fluent English, but he was very literal about definitions. He hated to hear someone say that his restaurant was fantastic. He would say, “You mean it does not EXIST?”.

I always got a kick out of that. Spellcheck is trying to get me to drop the ‘n’ in “restauranteur”. I’ve seen people using that crippled spelling of the word (restaurateur) and it looks retarded to me.

ed, it must be those politically-correct twats at work behind your spell-checker. They seem not to like “n’s” in words….

Ha, those “too literal” people get on my nerves! I knew this guy once, whom, if you said “kid” in front of, he’d ask if you were refering to baby goats. I got to the point where I wanted to beat the crap out of him. I mean, he wasn’t saying it as a joke- he was SERIOUS! And the irony was, he was into things Biblical- and especially Hebrew…HEBREW- the most idiomatic language that ever existed! How’s that for a contradiction?!

I wouldn’t doubt if that guy is in an asylum today. He was pretty “out there” in many ways, anyway.

how do you imagine america started. maybe you disagree, but I believe it was mostly a couple of english joint stock companies that became wildly profitable, and then took over the rest of the continent.

the fact that they won the darwinian competition is pretty good evidence joint stock companies confer some kind of benefit.

the problem with you blackish pilling for lack of a better term is that it seems rather indistingishable from anarcho primitivism.

i have no problem with anprims, but i don’t think an entire world filled with them sounds like a very good idea.

Hmmm….I don’t know what to make of that…. I don’t really know the pill colors, nor the nuances of various political ideas. I’m just stating the present reality.

I don’t know about how America started….but it certainly wasn’t long before the corps- from whalers to the railroads; to slavers to cotton traders got into the picture…and of course, ol’ douchebag Alex Hamilton…

Basically, groups of men, be they government leeches or corporate overlords, working towards ends other than freedom and property rights.

I think we can agree that since a corporation is an artificial “person” created through the auspices of the state, that if there were no state, there could be no artificial state-created “persons”, right?

To what degree of technology and regimentation people want to live, is their own bidness- as long as their actions are voluntary and not at the expense of others- but that can not be the case under corporate-state fascism.

It’s not about getting everyone to accept one model; one way of life; one economic philosophy, etc. It’s rather about the freedom for all to do as they please- only without coercion or forced funding or giving up of their own rights.

Live in a one-room cabin in the woods, or the Trump Tower, or somewhere in between, such as Eric and I do- just don’t ask me to pay for it, nor prohibit me from living the way I choose to. Isn’t that what Libertarianism is all about?

In theory, there are always opportunities- but in the end, it seems that everyone always ends up giving it all back and coming out with less than they started with. You provide unsecured negative-interest loans.

And regardless; of what good is a Libertarian philosophy if we fund the very system which we profess to be fighting?

I wish Berkshire would just buy the entire US Govt. At least Warren would have an incentive to cut costs and raise revenues, two things that are sorely lacking in todays snowflake avalanche nu male topia.

Corporations are a creature of the government- an artificial “person” who is granted “rights”- but since a corp is a fiction created by government, it has no natural rights, so it’s “rights” are artificially created and granted by the gov’t.

The purpose of a corp is to shield it’s owners from liability.

And while there is nothing inherently evil about trading shares of interest in businesses, one does have to realize that what Wall St. has come to be is just an outlet for crony capiltalism; fractional-reserve banking, and the statist policies which enable those things.

Personally, I don’t see it as being much different than if the Navy or Po-leece Dept. were selling shares. Who the hell wants to own a part of it?

Our hearts will be where our riches are.

Nothing inherently Libertarian about jobs either. It’s basically bond-servitude. Voluntary servitude for those who can’t or won’t operate independently on the free market (Not that much a free market remains anymore…but that is largely the fault of people not caring because they never truly had any dealings with that market).

What corp- large or small- can one work for, where one’s conduct and speech and attire and even views and beliefs aren’t defined by others?

Nah, Tor- it’s just the reality. It’s one of those things we take for granted because it’s so common and accepted….but none-the-less, it’s one of those things which is a big part of the problem, but a forest which often isn’t seen for the trees.

Think about it: There can be no corps in a Libertarian world. You could freely sell a stake in your bidness…but the owners still bear responsibility/liability…no special favors from Uncle, ’cause there’d be no Uncle.

Ditto jobs. How is working for a corp or just another guy any different than joining the military? Well, O-K, maybe you don’t have to kill someone (unless you’re a pig) but you are still giving up a lot of your freedom, in exchange for some convenience and perceived security.

We may not have any control over how the government violates our rights- but when we sign up to cede those rights, I think it says a lot about what we think of our liberty.

Then what is the point of Libertarianism? It’s all about personal freedom.

Sure, many do not value such a commodity- and they should also be free to enslave themselves if they so choose- but if WE do that, and also fail to raise those whom we are responsible for to value freedom, then what is the point to our Libertarianism?

One does not have to be isolated in a corner. Quite frankly, producing a product; performing a service or practicing a trade; cultivating the land; trading and bartering; etc. those things are MORE participatory than showing up at some office of a multinational corp, or being stashed away in a cubicle; or even doing the same things for someone else’s business.

Freedom is all about living with the consequences and rewards of our own choices and actions. Pretty much everything in this present system is geared toward getting around those constraints; so that if one is a part of that system, they are neither free themselves, nor are they able to deal with others as their circumstances and actions dictate, but instead must follow some pre-defined course of action based instead upon the orders of others and their goals and desires- just as a cop or soldier does. And just like the cop or soldier, or any order-follower, they must delegate their own autonomy, and that of those with whom they interact.

Following orders is antithetical to freedom- both that of your own, and everyone else’s.

I approach finances from the opposite side: Have a place to live that’s free and clear, where you can live cheap and pretty much do what you want….and you don’t need much- and therefore aren’t tied to the state’s economy.

Since I was never about money, and lived most of my former life in the People’s Republik Of New York; and always stayed pretty free, it took me till I was 39 to get this free & clear place….(Including a mobile home for my soon-to-be 93 year-old mother who is dependent upon me)- but this is about as close as one can get to a Galt’s Gulch in the present-day USA- no local police; no zoning or any of that BS; dirt-cheap taxes and cost of living. I can live on a few hunnert bucks a month- and anything over that is gravy.

The negative is: Probably won’t be able to leave the country till after the crash….but real estate here was not only unaffected in ’08, it actually went up (Good cheap rural land with very low taxes…), so who knows?

But our prevailing M.O. must be to live free, where ever we are.

We have it pretty easy. When you think back to what some had to do, to secure their own freedom and that of their neighbors and descendants- whether from King George or the Calf-lick church or the Bolsheviks or Abe Lincoln….we look silly, often just trying to prevent a little inconvenience.

And you are correct- our knowledge of history, or even the present, is more fantasy and error than reality (Which is why I largely avoid even the “alternative media”)- all we really know is what we see personally- and even that can be subject to interpretation. This is why it is our philosophy and beliefs which matter most. If we are doing the right things for the right reasons, we will not be easily manipulated.

Look at the mass media: The so-called “news”. They report some story about someone selling some drug- and to most watching, they will think that that was the “crime” rather than the state violence and caging (and raping of the other citizens to pay for it) perpetrated upon seller- and why? Because the majority who view such nonsense and think that it is “news” either have no cohsive philosophy/value system; or a a faulty/contradictory one- and thus most will cheer for the state’s goons, and despise the victim.

We need a new name.
Libertarian is ruined.
Anarchist, although accurate, has been ruined by the media, and now conjures images of communists and violence.
Voluntaryist sounds like you’re gonna join the Peace Corps…..

Why would a voluntarist or libertarian join the Peace Corps?
I started calling myself a constitutionalist when I had representation in the person of Dr. Ron Paul.
I don’t generally find that I need a name.

Bill, imagine if the majority ever figured that out! Buy low…sell high. Instead, when anything is up, they run like cows to a trough of sweet grain, yelling “Moooooo…buuuuyyy!!!”. And after it’s crashed 50%, they sell.

It doesn’t take very much intelligence to understand that an investor won’t make any profit if they always buy high and sell low.
I’m looking forward to being able to buy whatever I want for pennies on the dollar after the next correction.

You would think that to be the case, Bill- but yet the average person buys stocks when they are high, with the mentality “I have to get in on this! They’re gonna go even higher, and I’ll miss out!”….and sells after there is a substantial drop.

Of course, the only sane thing to do, whether it be stocks or real estate, or whatever, is buy after a good crash, and sell when it’s up high.

Even the edumacated do the same when it comes to business- Lookit how many businesses will pay hundreds of millions or even billions for a business which is at it’s absolute peak, and ride it all the way to the basement.

Same with the Bitkern- People see that it went from practically worthless to what it is now, and “want a piece of that”- but it’s too late. Just another fiat worthless currency. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when a lot of people who bought high want out all at once. Ain’t gonna be purdy.

Education only benefits those who derive understanding from it. Most education is rote learning and conveys little if any understanding. I didn’t start learning much until after I had my high school diploma and had something worth learning on my second full time job.

I wonder if this kid has looked into getting the entire car replaced (or get a refund) under Arizona’s auto lemon laws. I certainly would be trying.

This is from Arizona’s attorney general’s website on the lemon laws there.
——————–
NEW CAR

The Arizona Lemon Law has a number of specific provisions. You should read the law, file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau AUTO LINE Program or consult with an attorney if your new car is a lemon. Here are the basics:

The period covered by the Lemon Law is the term of the manufacturer’s warranty or two years or 24,000 miles, whichever is earlier. This covered period begins on the date of delivery of the vehicle to the consumer.

If there is a problem with the car that substantially impairs the use and value of the car and does not conform to the express warranty of the manufacturer, the consumer should report it to the manufacturer.

The report must be made during the covered period.

The manufacturer or its authorized dealers can repair or correct the defect, accept return of the car or replace the car with a new car.

There is a limit on the number of times a consumer must allow the manufacturer to repair the car and the amount of time the car can be out of service. If during the covered period, the manufacturer fails to successfully repair the defect after four attempts, or the car is out of service by reason of repair for a cumulative total of 30 or more calendar days, the manufacturer must accept return of the car or replace the car with a new car.

It probably depends on how many of that model Tesla made in that year, but the likelihood of getting anything better is probably not very good if Teslas are generally expensive junk anyway. Automotive bling.

To be covered by the Lemon Law, the car has to have problems that “substantially impairs the use and value of the car”- Rattles and squeaks and trim not lining up, doesn’t fit that definition- it would have to be things that affect drivability/reliability.

Maybe they have a Little Whiny Bitch Law for stuff like that, where the threshold gets lower as the price of the car increases….

In California, I think it’s an automatic refund if the virtue signals don’t work.

I have a little different spin on Tesla and Musk. First off, I despise Musk’s harping on “climate change” and his shameless plugging of self driving transport. Such things make my flesh crawl. On the other hand, there are a few things I like about Tesla. First, it is NOT a multinational conglomerate that had sold out its customers long ago. Tesla, for better or worse, is trying to get customers. We can debate all day long on whether his products are good or bad or whether electrics will work or not. I believe that Musk is driving and benefiting from onerous car regulations that are making the IC engine prohibitively expensive. He may benefit from the impending relaxation of rules concerning automated cars. I do think that electric cars innately suck. What sane person without brain damage wants to drive a car that sounds like an electric toy? I mean, come on.

Back to my point, I hope Tesla is able to overcome its obstacles. He is NOT big 3 or large multinational company. Yes, he takes money from wherever he gets it, but he is building a car, albeit expensive that some wierdos do desire. I would rather see him building and selling it alongside Ford, GM and the others than not. What Tesla could show is that a smaller company, with a little push, could build vehicles and compete with the biggies. That could prove valuable. I think that Tesla’s survival is essential for any automotive renaissance to ever occur again. Smaller companies are essential for that to happen.

I would be fine with him if he did it on his own dime.
Instead he plays the crony game and follows where-ever the government transfers taxpayers’ wealth to.
He’s worshiped like a product development god but makes glaring errors.
When errors show up he gets to blame the customer in ways no one else could.

It’s impossible to make an honest profit here. As Musk is showing us, it’s also impossible to even earn any kind of profit- but thanks to crony-socialist-fascist-pseudo-capitalism, one can still thrive and be a hero while losing hundreds of millions of dollar, while idiots chomp at the bit to buy your product which you can’t even produce.

Nero would be spinning in his grave if he could see the absurdities of our day- they make him look sane.

Nero knew that was nothing he could do until the smoke cleared.
Making an honest profit requires honest business practices, which are prohibited to the government by the Constitution. In the absence of honesty, all we have is a mixed economy.

The Byzantine Empire was the continuation of the Roman Empire in the Greek-speaking, eastern part of the Mediterranean. Christian in nature, it was perennially at war with the Muslims.https://www.ancient.eu/Byzantine_Empire/

You got it, Eric! Today, it’d be a pointless fight, as between the Nazis and the Communists; or Bush vs. Obammer….neither side would be for liberty; and it would make zero difference who won; we’d all still lose.

Eric,
Fortunately the return of home schooling has brought with it a greater awareness of the real cause of many of the problems of the disparate states, the burgeoning federal treason.
The divide in Lincoln’s war was far from clear. There were brothers fighting on both sides, having bought into the Union’s lies.

…is a great listen, as it dispells the myth of Jesse James merely being a “bank robber”, and really paints a picture of the viciousness of the Yanks, and what it must have been like to have lived in that period.

GREAT stuff, and nice to hear some reality instead of the popular fairytales…..

Shoot, now that I have it up, I’m gonna listen again (it’s been many years), and I’m even gonna download the vids, ’cause one day we’re gonna wake up and stuff like this is gonna be gone, never to return.

You don’t think that the Big automakers don’t have their own set asides and advantages? They have literally the whole US government, NHTSA and the EPA setting the rules to make it favorable for them. They have vast access to capital and a large cash reserve to weather myriad economic storms that wipe out their competitors. Don’t kid yourself, the Big manufacturers are consolidating every day and are large enough to change the rules and the nature of the game. Bad as Musk is, an element of competition is good for the market. I have this idea of converting a junk Tesla S to a V8 powered stealth mobile.

It’s shame that it is a crony game but ‘the bigs are doing it’ doesn’t mean I cut him slack. The Nissan Leaf makes TM look like nothing subsidy wise but nobody is preaching the book of Nissan so I don’t have much need to point it out. The book of Musk is being preached and thus it needs to be pointed out.

I don’t like the whole ‘we don’t want nobody nobody sent’ model and Musk doesn’t do us any favors by playing it. He’s serving the interests some in the ruling class or its minions or he wouldn’t get a dime. TM isn’t a disruptive force then but perhaps an agent of social engineering. To get us into vehicles that a central authority has full control over. Where there is only one point of access required. That’s why the money flows that way, not to create competition for the bigs.

Exactly, Brent- and such is the ONLY way that someone who LOSES hundreds of millions of dollars per year can still manage to perpetuate not one, but FOUR bidnesses, and still have both private and taxpayer money flowing into them, AND be called a “visionary genius”.

Used to be that instead of funding such, Uncle used to jail those, and call them hucksters- but when they’re peddling Uncles wares of propaganda and cattle-prods, they are lauded.

Money can’t be lost, being gold and silver. Currency can be “misplaced” by putting it where it in a ledger where it won’t be found, and that is much easier when the ledger is electronic.
Hundreds of millions of dollars “lost” in business is nothing compared to trillions of dollars “lost” in the Pentagon.

Has anyone here even seen the original Mad Max, with a $200,000 budget and $100 million ticket gross? Or just the hideous Yankee knock off? Americans are still worth trillions of dollars, but only if you count trinkets.

Like the moon landing, the original negatives and sounds are either lost, or exist only in some hideous beta gamma delta epsilon degraded clusterfuck.

When I look at the night sky, I know in my heart the night rider is dead. It’s his own fault for being caught driving during the day by Max I suppose. Remember what he said?

You should see the damage, bronze. Huh? metal damage, brain damage. Heheheh. You listen bronze. I am the Nightrider. I’m a fuel injected suicide machine. I am the rocker, I am the roller, I am the out-of-controller! I’m the Nightrider, baby, and we ain’t never comin’ back! The Toecutter – he knows who I am. I am the chosen one. The mighty hand of vengeance, sent down to strike the unroadworthy! I’m hotter than a rollin’ dice. Step right up, chum, and watch the kid lay down the rubber road, ride to freedom!

Honey Badger West Texas don’t care. Try building one at the gulch https://imgtc.com/u0pVpW0 or really just anywhere east of El Paso and west of Fort Stockton on Interstate 10.

To Gulch or not to Gulch?
submitted 16 hours ago by TeranNotTerran

I stayed the night in the trailer last night. It was far more comfortable, air conditioned, quieter, and felt much more secure from rodents.

I burned just over 7 gallons of gas running my truck for 14.5 hours keeping the battery charged so the inverter could run the A/C. A good generator should be able to do that from 1.5-2 gallons. Truck also isn’t sounding quite as good after the oil change, the heavier oil weight might be causing issues with the hydraulic lifters or if the 10+ seconds without oil pressure because I neglected to fill the oil filter before putting it on caused more damage.

Those moments without pressure really sounded bad. I think I’ve learned my lesson. I think engines with hydraulic lifters are a lot more sensitive to that than the usual screw adjusted valves. I really don’t know much about the hydraulic kinds, so could be way off the mark.

I started getting terrible performance on my hotspot. Tried debugging and couple hours later figured out that I’m over my data cap. I figured that would have been more like a priority change, but for the hotspot plans on T-Mobile they throttle “to 2G speeds”.

ICMP was quick and unaffected but any TCP connection pushing any notable data was clearly throttled. And UDP streams had the occasional larger packet dropped. No real way around it.

I think my T-Mobile One plan might be okay for data out there but that phone doesn’t get the signal without the booster.

If I use the booster, the phone is quite awkward to use so might as well have a hotspot in the booster. As such, will probably cancel the hotspot plan and replace my iPhone 5S with something that gets decent reception and has LTE band 12 support. Maybe a Moto X, dunno. Verizon gets spotty 3G in the area, I’ve noticed.

My parents got here today. It was interested to see how drained my Dad was at the property. The wind and dry heat also get to him. Makes me wonder how much it makes sense to try and live off the grid in a place my genes are suited to at all.

I don’t sleep well at all even if it’s 75 if there’s no fan on me. The people in town are mostly hispanic. They are very, very polite. My Dad was overcharged at a small Mexican place and the owner ran out with the difference.

In general, I have nothing against the hispanic people. Some are lazy, some are hard working, but most are honest and easy going. But, part of me wonders if it’s better to brave the winters and cold. Maybe my genes dictate where I would do best and who I should be around. I can much more easily see myself working hard in sub-freezing weather than anything over 90, for sure.

Of course of the colder places, there’s none that seem to meet all the critera for a Gulch, without buying a bunch of land and subdividing. And West Texas is a great place in many ways. There should be a Gulch here.

I have to look at my own priorities and responsibilities. Living off the grid is a job in itself. And hopefully one that ends up being cheaper in return so you’re working for savings over straight cash.

Looking at it that way, it’s not any cheaper so far. I’m looking at upfront capital + higher monthly costs for a while than I would have renting an apartment.

At least, unless I went full solar. Even then, I’m going into town using a fair bit of gas. I think all types of living off the grid / homesteading end up being expensive unless you go all in — and then it truly is a job.

Physically, I’m supposed to be 25 but feel a lot older. I get a decent number of aches and I don’t have bounds of energy, mental nor physical.

I have softened up a lot and I am not sure why. I think maybe I burned up my youth earlier on and have never recovered from that. I don’t see any particular good way to give myself more energy.

And the lack of energy, stress tolerance, heat tolerance, etc, would be pretty manageable if living out at the Gulch were all I was doing. But I have to work and it’s very mental work with no easy answers for anything I’m doing.

I’m realizing that the hyper-comfort levels we are provided in modern society probably help facilitate extremely high levels of specialization. Maybe I could get into a good groove and do my job well while living off the grid, but I really don’t know. I think it ends up distracting me from my work and I don’t feel I should be working distracted.

I was thinking about living in El Paso and commuting to the Gulch once every week or two. I think it’s a good idea but my heart isn’t in it. I don’t know anyone in El Paso. I’ve tried to get to know a few online but they’ve really all fell through. At the end of the day, my friends are in San Antonio. Maybe I would eventually make good friends in El Paso.

There is certainly no perfect option. The loneliness gets to me and the lack of good food. I’ve become a sucker for good food and good company.

Not really sure what I’ll do. I don’t want to lead any of you on with how far I’ll take the Gulch. I’m not sure how far I will get with it.

Hi Tor L, Keep an eye on your Hotspot Data usage if you are using Straight Talk. Particularly; watch it when you get down to 700 mb left, then 600, then 500. When you reach about 500 mb remaining, Straight Talk with cut you off and claim that your data has been used up. I have called and argued unsuccessfully with them about that fact. They claim that their device which you are getting your reading from is incorrect while the device on their end is correct. Straight Talk should be renamed Shortchanged Talk.
Further, if your cell phone has a Shortchanged Talk simm card in it and is unlocked, you may find a better plan that uses the same cell phone towers you use presently. If you switch to another provider, promptly shut off your phone and remove the old simm card as soon as your new provider begins to transfer your phone number. Shortchanged Talk remotely sabotaged my phone and it can no longer find a cell phone signal anywhere even after performing a factory reset.
Re: Your Homesteading Goats Gulch. You will probably find that you have little time to work on the Gulch after working at a full time job. That has been my experience at the homestead. But then, I was gardening, raising chickens, cutting and chopping firewood, and dealing with hills. If you take on less tasks at once than I did, you should be fine. I still own my homestead, but the commute to work and back would consume 2 more hours daily of my time, so I now live close to work. I will be looking for a new homestead site close by. If I don’t find one, then I will work and save money for at least a few more years before returning to my homestead. I may also keep working for 11 more years until I reach 65 years of age. My savings will be quite substantial by that time. I already own the place outright, and I got what I need for solar power except for the batteries.

Brian, I can only hope that we have 11 more years to do anything economically, as that is increasingly a very contrarian position.
I wish I could say that I had thought about all of this before I became a vandweller in the mid 80’s, but I’ve been fortunate to stumble into a better situation by saving all of my disposable income as PMs instead of trying to find a place where I liked the weather year around. The wait also gave me the time to study land law enough to know that unless one has an allodial title, ones occupation of any land is subject to the existence or not of martial law. I suspect that the time will come when my skillsets will be in greater demand than unaffordable land is, and I’ll be able to leverage the greatest asset of all, skilled labor, to become a neo-peasant on a project with equity.

Brian said: “You will probably find that you have little time to work on the Gulch after working at a full time job.”.

That’s the Gawd’s honest truth! (Not that I ever tried it- I realized that going in- plus I’ve never really had a full-time job)- But sleep is essential (Lots of my neighbors don’t think so- so they work a full-time job; have a business; and farm….and they have heart attacks at 50; are constantly having accidents; etc. and have no time to enjoy life).

More than anything else, homesteading requires one’s time and presence. Otherwise, it’s just “Living in the country”. Get stuff done while the sun is shining. Do the physical work while you’re still fresh; not after you’re spent.

The sun is shining; there’s a list of things that need to be done; the weather is nice; it’s a great day. The tools are sitting there, waiting for you to pick them up. You anticipate how your place will look and feel in a few hours when the sun has moved, and eagerly anticipate the new day before you…..and then you drive off to the city, and when you return the sun is setting and the tools still sit there unused, and you never got to see the full light of noon upon your land, nor feel the warm caress of the sun…..

So, Eric.
I’ve budgeted $500 a year for a few online sites I like. It’s about what I paid for newspapers.
(Some of course goes to James Corbett in Yen)
You are next in line when one of the current donee’s fukces up.
Don’t get exited it will be between #$5 and $10 bucks a month.
Cheers.

It is obvious that Tesla has serious problems with quality assurance at several levels in their organization. This will have to be fixed now that other manufacturers are also starting to offer a lot of well made electric cars. If not, Tesla is going to get into deep problems. Could they go broke?

Yet, it must be emphasized that Tesla is having problems with quality not because their cars are electric. There are problems because they generally have a sloppy attitude towards quality assurance and pride in workmanship. It also seems that they have less qualified mechanics at their service centers. If Tesla had started producing fossil fueled cars, they would still have the serious quality problems that the user is explaining above.

I don’t understand how Tesla can lose so much money every year and not be broke already!

But you make a good point, Jone. If Tesla were making conventional cars, they’d probably explode when you go to start them! : ) And Tesla would surely already be out of business, because buyers of conventional cars would not put up with such shoddy quality-control. Only people who buy cars for virtue-signaling they afford, would tolerate stuff like this.

simple answer, they get the silicone valley metric, that doesnt care about financial health. Amazon hasnt really ever made any money, look at their dismal net numbers, as percentage of sales, cash flow, market cap, etc, its not even positive when adjusted for inflation.

but theres cash flow:
when you can get 2 billion from the credulous market which gets its money for free, and you sucker almost 500,000 people into putting up major dough for a reservation that cant be filled for about 2 years (if they manage that 20k per month build goal), then you can get going for a long time on losses.
Plus theres the carbon dioxide credit cash rolling in..

But if people think that Amazon is some sort of new high tech thing, rather than just a today-tech version of the Sears catalog, then its easy to see why this can happen.

Just wait until the next black swan hits the market and/or economy, a lot of this will be sorted out.
Also, dont forget the virtue signaling aspect of these cars, millenials and close-to Xers with a progressive mind set feeling guilty about the money the make in places they know they should hate

Cars are becoming like computers. cars will be judged by both hardware and software and how they interact. As far as I can see Tesla has the best OS and software of any auto. The hardware might lack “build quality” to use the computer term. But in the future people will buy cars for the software. But long term it is hopeless as Waymo is said to be going live this year in Chandler AZ. BTW, BMWs are catching fire. Literally.

Tesla HQ is about 5 miles down the street from me, so those POS are a dime-a-dozen, and a daily eyesore. The Model X is just plain BFUGLY, and I was unpleasantly reminded of that as I type this!

For a good laugh go on Yelp and search Tesla in Palo Alto — review after review from snowflakes that are pissed by having to wait at the “FREE” supercharger stations. BWAHAHAHAHA!!!

My ’08 Lexus IS was the best purchase I ever made. Bought it with 47k miles on it, more than 50% of the depreciation paid for, and I paid it off in 2 years. Whisper quiet, 306 ponies, buttery ride, has never given me a single problem, and not quite dime-a-dozen riding on 19″ forged F-sport rims.

But my Tesla-eater is spelled D-u-c-a-t-i 1098. I never get tired of smoking Roadsters and Model Esses.

Even Tesla will offer to me their cars free of charge I will refuse . and maybe if Elon will promise me one million as “subsidies fur sure I’ll will thinks twice.
Eric I will assure you that everything you write is 99% agreed by me. Wonderful.

Dear Eric, by the other reply of me I’ve crossed the “the notify me the follow up …..” and now I can not stop the avalanche of e-mails I receive.
Would you be so kind to help me to stop this !
Thank you

Alex, if you look just below the box that you type in when you reply to a comment here, you will see something which says “Manage your subscriptions”. (The line just above the “post comment” button) Click on “manage” and it will take you to a page where you can select which discussions you want to be subscribed to or unsubscribed from.

Eric, that’s one feature which WP has that Disqus doesn’t- the ability to subscribe/unsubscribe from individual discussions…which REALLY is a nice feature. With Disqus, it’s all or none- which is pretty stupid….

Difficult to see why he’s complaining about the car. EVERYONE knows that the only reason to buy a Tesla is to be able to brag about it to your friends. If you want great reliability, there’s a place like Japan where those cars have been coming out for decades. If you can live with good reliability, then you have the US and, to some extent, Europe.

But you don’t go to a company like Tesla and expect anything more than this guy is seeing. But, in the end, I think guy will realize the above and finally understand that Teslas are to be LOOKED AT, not driven.

They don’t get looked at very well, based on my experience. Now, I don’t pay as much attention to the cars around me as Erik probably does, but I have never need a Tesla except in a photograph. That said, there must be a lot of Teslas in eastern Wyoming, with there being a charging station in Cheyenne and Lusk.

Of course, there is the fact that when the electric grid goes down, so do Tesla’s charging stations. Aside from the fact that they offload the emission to the power plant, I doubt that a Tesla uses less energy.

Changing one source of energy for another always loses some percent. It makes no sense when speaking of petroleum….or even coal unless you want controlability and reliability and convenience.

In any vehicle, you want the smallest energy in terms of size and weight to power it, hence nobody wants to load a huge amount of coal compared to oil in a ship. Imagine the size of a coal bin that was equal to gasoline or diesel or plain oil crude. There’s a good reason the world changed to petroleum and it’s because of the need to move more than just huge ships.

The greenies have a lack of understanding of basic physics. Converting coal to electricity is a monumental task when you speak of coal being on one side of the country and the electrical consumer being on the other side.

It’s a shame electric transmission lines haven’t followed the highways instead of being off in the country where the green crowd only goes to enjoy mother nature…..and camping out underneath high power lines. They probably don’t notice country folk keep their houses far from that power.

I could cure everybody of their stupidity by having them experience something some friends did. Out for the day of work in fields with tractors and one field with a transmission line (69KV) running over it. One guy used his winch truck to get to the field and let it sit all day with all that energy 30 feet above it. End of day and he grabs the truck and gets knocked down by the electricity it’s gathered that day. Finally, one of them had enough sense to throw a chain onto the truck with the other end on the ground.

That field, and every other field I ever saw with a fairly low transmission line through it, always grew giant crops with the occasional strange growth pattern. So what could a greenie take from this experience? Probably not much.

Wind generated electricity is so abundant in Texas now that during periods of very low useage it’s not only given away but the producers have paid up to nearly $9/MWH for someone to relieve them of it. I don’t go for subsidy but the industry doesn’t need subsidy now and maybe never did. It’s the 3rd largest source of power in Tx. And it produces CO2 in the same way transmission lines produce it, when the products that are used are made. There are no free meals, no free rides or free anything.

If you need a driveway I can’t make on appear but I can haul it there one molecule at a time as it were. Want a big gas tank….or a barn…..or house….or anything else and somebody will put it on a truck to get it to you. They could alternatively put it on a mule and wagon and get it there and the greenhouse gases from that would make a diesel truck look like nirvana.

Bill, it sits on rubber tires and the ground itself doesn’t necessarily make a “ground”. I’ve grabbed an electric fence more times than I can say standing on dry sand and barely felt a buzz and that was always with high joule chargers. It’s a big problem when the ground is dry for a couple inches down and the cows don’t notice it either. I’ve seen cattle that have developed a complete disdain for a hot wire. Touching a vehicle in west Tx. has always been dicey since we commonly have near or zero percent humidity and if you’re standing on moist ground or grass, weeds, etc. you can get a jolt just from static. No magic there.

Rubber contains more than enough carbon black to be a good conductor, if for no other reason than to discharge any static that might serve as an ignition source for hydrocarbon fumes.
A electric fence is directly connected to a high voltage fencer for the purpose of shocking livestock.
I have driven up to transmitting sites with well over 10 volts per meter of radio frequency signal strength and never had any problem like that you attribute to being below a high tension line. The higher the frequency, the higher the power in the signal, and 60 cycles is nothing compared to medium wave or VHF broadcasting frequencies. The electrical engineering that is done for power transmission frequencies is essentially identical to that done for DC with the exception for circuits with very large amounts power factor correction in use. Static only builds up when there is no drain, and the presence of a piddly 69kv line wouldn’t make an difference.
I spent a decade as a broadcast engineer before I became a trucker over 3 decades ago, and low levels of humidity only builds static charges on surfaces that can store them. Everything around a transmission or broadcasting tower is as close to ground as possible to dissuade lightning, which requires a discharge to the clouds to provide a circuit for the bolt to return to the ground.

So everybody in west Tx. has only been imagining getting shocked touching a vehicle? Even when you can see the discharge spark? And they only imagine it’s so hot it will burn your hand too trying to open the door? People get shocked bad enough to make them jerk their hands back just touching each other. I guess my erection just imagined that big jolt when me and Mary Lou…..and she had a spot on her pudenda too….

Static electricity cannot be acquired from a transmission line because they are all well grounded. If there were enough of a connection for more than a spark, there’d be a body. Anytime there is wind, low humidity, and an ungrounded aerial, there will be the possibility of static. Transmission lines are a coincidence, not causal.

Bill, If titties can act as attenuators, why not trucks as capacitors? [*=On Long Island, there are vast swaths of electric co. ROWs with houses right alongside for miles…and one of the highest breats cancer rates in the entire country]

That field is on a hill and the poles are on each side making a pretty long swath down the side involving another set of poles so there’s several hundred feet of crop that’s much closer to the lines than what the specs call for but in the middle of nowhere and it’s been there as long as I can remember and nothing happens since nobody lives near it but every year, no matter the crop, it’s always taller than the crop to the sides and shortens the further away from the lines it gets to the point of being the same size as the rest of the field. If that ground isn’t being affected by those power lines I’ll eat your hat…..and so will scores of people who are familiar with it.

Nobody knows for sure what all happens proximity wise to EMF but it has an effect on living things if not everything.

My van weighs 3 tons all by itself, but everything else would bring the total to under 5 tons, not counting the slab under the storage unit. My current goal is to find a used 6 by 10 trailer to empty the storage unit into, so I can literally take everything with me, if I want. I’m looking at a spread out by Van Horn as a future parking place for the van.

i’m calling for proof or it didn’t happen. my brothers place has a major transmission line running over it as well as a minor one and there is no difference between that field’s crop growing rates and the one on the other side of it. Animals act no different even under the wires.

The iron in the soil;
The proximity of structures which may absorb much of the radiated energy (Titties seem to absorb a lot- where I’m originally from, where there are lots of high-tension ROWs with houses built right alongside, they have about the highest rate of breast cancer in the country);
Number of lines; height and voltage;
Type of tower they’re supported on; how grounded and insulated; etc. etc.

I would not doubt for a second what Eightsouthman is saying. These are the types of things one can often observe, but which are never mentioned or quantified in official statistics; maybe never studied; and certainly not publicized.

Observant people who spend time in the real world see these types of things all the time. Mosr these days even who would see them, are taught not to believe what they see with their own eyes, but rather to believe what they are told.

A car should not cost you more than 25% of your income per month.
With that in mind a “new” car is not really a realistic investment. Neither is the 3 year lease good investment.
Look at the resale business to see what a car is actually worth when you drive out of the dealership, 1 year later, 3 years later, and 5 years later.
We are writing off a huge sum of money for a 5 year old car.
Now take a ride anywhere about 4-6:30 p.m. You are likely to take your life in your hands by doing so.
IF the weather is bad, you must suffer from tailgating idiots along the way. So why suffer an 80,000 vehicle with no real bumpers? I want steel around me not plastic or aluminum. Alas most new cars do not give us that protection anymore.
Every year Consumer Reports sends out a survey. Every year the big 3 flunks it big time.
This is no hacked review. It is customers who have got taken by piss poor engineering and patriotically bought an “American Car.” If those cars are junk? Just the way the business works.
So we get foreign cars that are now built better than anything here.
I still drive a 1995 Toyota Camry and it has been paid off for many years now.
Why? Basically it is all about money.
So unless a car starts getting good reviews from the general public surveys they might as well go bankrupt and close their doors. They are basically extinct in today’s world with today’s multimedia coverage of mistakes in car production.
The real problem is GM, Ford, and Chrysler products cannot stand the competition.
They are still living in an age when they were basically the only choices.
But they also had a 100,000 mile warranty on their products. That was corrected. Their cars used to stand up to 100,000 miles but not any more.
It was once said that there is a fool born every minute.
Tesla is living proof that this is true. Now it is more like one every second.
If you want good cars in this country we have to let them go under when they build poor products.
This isn’t labor acting up. It is piss poor engineering encouraged by management of the companies involved.
What I want is to do away with the EPA regulation of cars.
I want a simple engine easily repaired by anyone with half a brain. It needs to be efficient use of the fuel with at least 30 mpg in town.
I want a simple car at a price that sets me back no more than 25% of my income.
I want a car that is safe as possible against the idiots that do not know how to drive.
I want a paneled car with easily replaced body parts.
I want a proper steel bumper and mud flaps to keep the splash down in foul weather. I can live with a dent on the bumper from the idiot behind me if it totals their car.
It has to be fast enough to get on a freeway in a reasonable amount of time.
I want a rear wheel transmission built to last and not die at the first time there is pressure on the trans.
The front wheel vehicles will die in a snow storm if you try to reverse and forward to get out of ice.
Right now a five year old electric Nissan Leaf is a better car than the domestic variety and it has far too short a range between charges. That is shameful.

Dave, I do believe that the economic unviability of modern cars (Too expensive to buy; too expensive to repair once out of warranty; planned obsolescence; complete reliance on software which will only be supported/updated for a limited time; etc.) is the USA way of ensuring that internal-combustion engined cars will be gone soon. (As will the prospect of living without a car payment!)

you want these things but no manufacturer will do it for you? do it yourself! look on youtube there are plenty of guys that have done drivetrain swaps I especially like the LS drivetrains into BMWs or merc chassis with modified ford explorer diffs. Is it time consuming? Require you to learn new skills? buy new equipment like welders and a pile of steel? yep all that.
the cars are meant to fold up like bean can, fold up in a special way so the force of any impact is sent away from the cabin where you are.

Yup. I live in that kid’s neck of the woods and they’re as numerous as cockroaches. Clueless, shallow, entitled, virtue-signaling little shitheads. Most of them “work” in academia or some government sinecure that allows them to divorce themselves from having to deal with the real world. This clueless dweeb just got his first lesson in who the real Elon Musk is (hint: NOT the altruistic, environment-loving, selfless SJW superhero that this pussy and his peers have been propagandized into thinking he is).

Saddest of all: this kid is going to get ass-raped out of his $80K once the car falls out of warranty (IF Tesla doesn’t unilaterally decide at some point to just stop honoring warranties on non-new model year cars). Worse than that, he’s ideoogically brainwashed and economically ignorant enough to continue singing Tesla’s praises even after gettinh taken to the cleaners by their shitty product. Then again, maybe virtue-signaling millennial SJWs deserve such a fate …

Musk is the Preston Tucker of our times, but being a grifter these days makes you a master of the universe instead of a target for the SEC.
The video was funny, having been made by a baby faced whiny little bitch.
The Tesla is like any other Lithium Ion battery powered tool, initially impressive when you use it and think; “hey, this thing’s the bomb, just as powerful, but no annoying cord”. Of course that trick new cordless Sawzall costs 3 times what a corded one does and when the battery shits the bed after a couple of years you’ll find out a new battery’s cost would buy you a brand new corded Sawzall, except you don’t need one because the original corded one still works like a charm.

Yup! And in Tucker’s defense, his car was actually very innovative and coulda been a contender. He got fucked by the financing, not by fucking his customers. Also, his business didn’t depend on manna from taxpayers!

Tucker offered Too Much. He sealed his fate by taking on the big guys with a business that would have, could have worked but verily cut into the big boys game of clearing a $100 to his $10. They just couldn’t have that.

GTC, Lucky you having a son with common sense. As far as
this guy having $80k to blow on a crappy car, I think back to what
my dad told me. “Just because you have a lot of money, it does
not mean you are smart.

Why would anyone who buys anything with the thought of saving money be considered intelligent? One cannot save by spending. At best, one can reduce future spending by buying smart.
I have never bought a new car. The most I have ever spent on a used car is $3500.
It doesn’t matter whether things are new or used, when you buy something, you get the problems the last owner lost.

All I have to say about this is that I bought a brand new Porsche 9 years ago. It was absolutely perfect. Not a rattle, not a misaligned anything. I still drive it and to this day, I haven’t had a single problem. I do once a year maintenance and that is it. Oh, and it is pretty fun to drive. I can hardly imagine spending nearly $100,000 for a car that was in the shop multiple times in the first year. Unbelievable. One might also note that to this day, 70% of all the Porsche’s ever built are still on the road. How many of all the Tesla’s ever built will be on the road 85 years from now?

Yes, Bill, I am pretty much first off the lights. My nephew was so excited to drive with me last Christmas – because I “drive fast” according to him. 🙂 Of course, he is just 5 years old so his perspective is a little skewed. I drive “fast” compared to the clovers on the road. But not in comparison to some others.

I am no longer in a big enough hurry to not be the last off the light. My father taught me to drive, and the biggest thing that he installed was his anal use of the turn signals. If I were a cop, most of my tickets would be given out for failure to signal. Even most cops don’t bother signalling anymore. Sad.

Hi Eric,
ERASE that date from your mind completely. Any woman who wrinkles her little princess nose at what “we” are endeared to, does not even deserve space in our memory. After 52 years, I’m running out of memory space anyway, so it’s best just to sweep out the junk and save the space for better use, lol!

Around here, the women wouldn’t be bothered by the bikes; nor would they be bothered by the guns I have just laying around the house in the open….but then again, those women aren’t very feminine either, so who needs ’em?

Ha! I could just see your date…. She probably wouldn’t have acted much differently had she seen a freezer full of body parts…..

Back there when the earth was cooling I had a friend who had a sister. She was a knock-out, very nice body and very nice person. I tell him to bring her over so he does and brings her roomie with her, another knock-out, almost like twins and both so damned good looking I had to put a maxi-pad in my mouth to keep from drooling. When they left they had their hands in each other’s back pockets and were headed to sack out before the night of partying. Ah, hell, she was on the back of my bike and breathing in my ear and I never noticed what it was on her breath.

I had a couple women friends who lived together back in college days and they’d double team you but they made me seem like a virgin who hadn’t learned to cuss. One was a hell of a belly dancer. One of my much older buddies was the perfect match for them, looked just like Castro and dressed like him too. It was always a hoot to go in somewhere with him.

He and his buddy and me and my buddy broke down once in Seminole or some such place right out of NM. Went into the truck stop and sat down. Locals were staring at the four of us like we were just in from Brazil or some place. We all had long hair and were sorta rough around the edges according to white side-wall country bumpkins. The young waitress(it was always like this)came over and flirted with us and got our orders. CC asked if they had some cold beer and she smiled and said “I wish but no we don’t”. He said “never mind honey”, pulled a cold one out of his jacket and poured it in a glass. We’d already stopped at Jerry’s Bar(famous later)in Carlsbad and knocked back enough boilermakers to get us “right”. It’s a long haul from EP to Lubbock, esp. when your Slush-o-matic dies en route.

Ed, what can I say? I’ve always been too honest and gullible. I’ve had people accuse me of doing underhanded deeds just because they thought I was smarter then them and that’s what they would have done. Ever notice the people with few scruples think everyone else is that way? It took me a while in my adult life to simply listen and not speak.

ROTFL!!!! Eric, I LITERALLY LOLed at that one- “Making comments about the things I like already within the first 5 minutes”!

And THAT’S ALWAYS the way….the cute ones…..they’re either whacko libtards, or just otherwise out to lunch……

And it’s the ones who SDON’T say anything about the things you like that you really have to watch out. They have the sense to shut up till you’ve got something invested, and they think they can control you then, or take your stuff.

It’s a damn shame what’s happened to women.

And the cuter they are, the more they try and get away with- hence the 5 minutes… If she were fugly, she would have waited. The fugly ones can be even worse; they want *things* to make up for what they lack….and after they rope some poor guy, they set their plan in motion to “get theirs” [read: “yours”].

5 minutes, and already giving you “the shit test”- seeing if she could control you.

I wish I could afford a Porsche. For the money You should have a perfect car. However. as Kia demonstrates, the most expensive is not necessarily the best. It’s like lawnmowers. Briggs & Stratton makes the best engines for the money After eight years or so I have a problem to fix! Tesla is no different than cheap Chinese junk. Like my tea kettle which the nuts holding the handle kept loosening up.

Michael, “nuts” on a tea kettle. YOu must have the ultimate Chinese tea kettle.

I believe cars and trucks are for driving. I can’t imagine anything, esp. a Porsche, not having a single thing fail if I drove it for 10 years. But “my” Porsche would get the living whee driven out of it…..as intended. When I own a hot car I do well just to keep a good set of tires on it.

I wracked my brain(ouch)and can’t recall anything with four wheels or two that were stock after my ownership. It’s always a case of upgrading those lesser pieces that won’t hold up. The same shocks for 10 years, unbelievable…..for me.

Just fyi, I have replaced more tires on my Porsche than I would have liked. The performance tires wear out quickly and they fail easily when one hits a road hazard like a pot hole. If I had any complaint about my Porsche, the tires would be the thing – but that isn’t Porsche – it is just the nature of those tires on typical government roads. The car itself is solid. The worst incident that I had occurred when a truck in front of me on a highway dropped a metal ladder. I swerved but still hit the ladder on the right front wheel at over 70 mph. There was no body damage to the car but the tire was torn apart. I am not sure how many cars could hit a metal ladder at that speed and suffer nothing but a flat tire? Not a dent in the body of the car.

Performance tires – as I’m sure you know – always have short lives; it’s the nature of the beast. Just as M/S knobbies also wear faster and make more noise. I get maybe 1 full season out of a set of ultra-performance tires on my sport bike!

I had a set of Pirelli 235/70’s on my ’86 Buick Estate Wagon. I could hang an exit ramp at 60 MPH all the way through, but I only got 30K miles out of the tires. I also only got 15 MPG with the Olds 403 I built and put in it, but it was a genuine sleeper!

Ha! GTC, sounds like my sister’s old early 70’s Vista Cruiser she had in the 80’s. It was a hoopty she picked up for two or three hunnert bucks…paint had already lost it’s shine….but man, that wagon was a true beast! Wish I had it today!

I work with a(n otherwise very bright) young 23-year-old who just put a deposit down for a Model 3. I tried to talk him out of it, but I’m afraid that, bright as he is, he’s got some learning left to do that only the school of hard knocks is going to teach him (he’s also heavily invested in Bitcoin right now, which isn’t going to end well for him either).

This kid might find out something else about Musk and Musk being one of the masters of the universe of silicon valley….they don’t tolerate brand disparagement. If he had a job in high tech he might find himself out of job shortly.

What I find to be funny is reading some of the Youtube comments of those who worship at the alter of Elon, excusing this all away.
Over 1,000 dislikes for the video. All the guy did was explain the series of issues he had with the car and the fact that the service center couldn’t really fix most of them and people have a problem with that.

“If it could save a person’s life, could you find a way to save ten seconds off the boot time? If there were five million people using the Mac, and it took ten seconds extra to turn it on every day, that added up to three hundred million or so hours per year people would save, which was the equivalent of at least one hundred lifetimes saved per year.” -Steve Jobs.

Some Tesla lovers compare Elon to Steve Jobs. They aren’t even on the same planet with regards to their abilities. Musk is a Silicon Valley charlatan hand-waving his way though the “big picture” presentation. Jobs got that you have to obsess over the details. And when you get the details right it means everything else falls into place. Realize the car in that video has less than 10,000 miles on it. It’s been in for service at least 5 times by my count, sometimes less than 1000 miles between visits to the service crew. How much time does this guy have tied up in vehicle service?

And what about the buyer? The closest full service center was what, two hours away? Why would you buy a vehicle that required an all-day trip to get service? I get that when it comes to my iPhone if I want to take it to an Apple store it means I have to take it to Denver, but I also get that 1) it’s somewhat disposable or at least I can swap out the SIM card with an older one that’s pretty easy to store at home, and 2) It is pretty unlikely that I’ll ever need to take it in for service. I’m guessing that thought never entered his mind, since we’re all pretty used to things “just working” these days (right up until they don’t). I can take my vehicle to the local-ish stealership for service, or dozens of independent shops, or try to work on it myself. With a highly specialized vehicle like a Tesla I imagine finding a wrench would be very difficult. Not just the drivetrain either. I understand they use a lot of composite materials and adhesives in the body to keep weight down, manufacturing techniques that most body guys aren’t going to touch.

1. Back in 1982, I knew a guy who bought a new Plymouth Horizon. It had a 2-inch gap between the door and the body. The dealer wouldn’t fix it.

2. Say what you will about the Big Three, and they had a lot to answer for beyond even Plymouth, but they’ve been around a long time and, with computer technology, have gotten most of the kinks out of the production process. Those are things Elon, despite his high-tech processes, won’t learn in 50 years.

That is generally because in order to fully appreciate computer technology in today’s engineering, you have understand how it was possible to make things work properly without that technological advantage. It’s like the character of Jeff Goldblum said in Jurassic Park…..”it didn’t require any discipline to obtain that knowledge, you just stood on the shoulders of giants, and took the next step”. Elon Musk is our “John Hammond”, all the money and the ambition, but no discipline.

Indeed. Musk is conflated with people who have talent in other than a promotional/flim-flam kind of way. It slays me that he is looked upon as the real-life Tony Stark when he is a finance guy, a paper-pusher and glad-hander. He never actually made anything.

And look how long it took Hyundai/Kia to produce quality cars: about 30 years, from the introduction of the Yugo-like Excel in 1985, at $5,000. I knew a guy who made the mistake of buying one back then and it always was in the shop. Hyundai stuck at at. True, they get subsidies from Seoul. But the global marketplace is merciless in destroying badly made cars.

There’s such a thing as institutional knowledge and it takes time to build.

The Plymouth Horizon wasn’t a luxury model. Chrysler was on the outs until Lee Iacocca scammed Uncle into loaning the company money to keep it from going bankrupt (which is exactly what should have happened, what with 2 inch gaps in the bodies). The assets of the company could have been sold to another company who might be better able to manage them. Of course that’s assuming the assets are worth more than scrap, which was likely the case given what happened when GM put factories up for sale.

Tesla is walking into a market that’s had 100+ years of progress. Musk should have (and maybe he did) found out how to build modern cars, with modern assembly lines. He’s not inheriting any legacy factories that need to be updated, or labor contracts that put restrictions in job descriptions, or even how many employees he thinks he might need. He just fired a bunch of people and not a peep from the NLRB (because he has the advantage of a non-union shop), for example.

The reason new competitors have an upper hand over the legacy business is because they can learn from the legacy mistakes and improve on them. They also don’t have the sunk cost of existing factories, and the advantage of many people preferring the new and novel over the old and established.

Uncle Shylock did not loan Chrysler any stolen tax money back then. What happened was that Chrysler received loan guarantees, essentially making taxpayers cosigners to the loans. Had Chrysler gone belly up then the American people would have been forced at gunpoint to pay the tab. Of course that did not happen so Chrysler did not actually receive any funds from the treasury.

Chrysler may not have gotten a direct loan, but if you were in the auto industry at that time and for the 5-7 years following their collapse you will remember that almost every vehicle that had government tags on it was a Chrysler Corp vehicle. The GSA yard was across from my office and it looked like a Chrysler storage yard for white vehicles. I had a customer ask when Chrysler opened a receiving yard for their vehicles.
Maybe not a direct loan, but they were saved by the US government.

Hi Eric,
Thanks. Funny you should mention Hyundai. I picked up a ’17 Elantra Limited with Tech and Ultimate packages for my wife in June for about 21K (7k off MSRP). The car is near perfect, with no squeaks or rattles. With the only mod being a standard K&N air filter, the 2.0L engine broke in beautifully at 1,800 miles, just before I changed to oil to M-1, the only time its been in for service. Even my wife commented that the engine got really smooth with improved power. Here’s hoping the long term reliability is good.

I was amazed that after his litany of problems which included 2 defective windshields, multiple squeaks and rattles, a misaligned steering wheel, a door panel FALLING OFF, misaligned trim, a charging port that failed to open, a squeaking HVAC fan, a mirror that would not unfold all the way and a bad touchscreen, along with multiple failed attempts to fix these things, he describes owning a Tesla as “A fantastic experience, if slightly flawed” and further described the issues as “little tiny problems”!
I don’t know anyone other than a Tesla fanboy who would not be livid over a host of issues like this one with a $15k Hyundai, never mind an $80k luxury vehicle. I recently purchased a used 2015 Kia K900, and if I had even 1/4 the problems he’s had with his Tesla, I’d likely never buy another Korean made vehicle again. As it is, my Kia is tight and rattle free. The door panels stay where they’re supposed to, and the only issue I’ve had was condensation in the reverse lights, which was quickly fixed under warranty. Strange that Kia, widely believed to be one of the worst brands for quality is apparently head and shoulders above Tesla, yet Tesla gets pass after pass.

watched the video and couldn’t help laughing…. all the rattles and squeaks, crooked steering, dodgy windscreen from day 1 on the new 80k car….. and the kid starts to worry and get concerned when the big touchscreen starts having issues!! The touch screen is more important than a crooked steering!!??

Lol! I’m guessing that he said “she” at least one time while referring to her, but I sure don’t want to watch that video again to find out if I’m right. While watching, I kept thinking “Who has $80,000 to spend on a car?!?” In this case, and perhaps many others, someone with more money than sense.

It’s funny- You can read articles predicting economic collapse, and citing all kinds of statistics and charts and formulas….but the best proof of the impending collapse is more easily seen in the actions of “normal” people; like the putz in the vid.

One little hiccup and this kid is financial toast! The car depreciates (as it certainly will) or wears out before expected; the RE market takes a hit, and suddenly, the kid is upside down for several hundred thousand dollars, paying interest to finance value that is no longer there. Not to mention if he loses his j-o-b…or has to take a cut in wages….

And even if he inherited money and paid cash for everything- 5 years from now, what does he have? A used-up car that, even if not falling apart, will be worth a tenth of what he paid for it; and a house that will be worth substantially less, because we are again at the top of a housing bubble (And where he is, is probably where the bubble is a bubble on top of a bubble), so all this money he’s spent, is essentially just pissed away.

I’ll never understand it. I never had an inheritance or anything- but my modus operandi from before I was even his age, was to get a sustainable place which I would own free and clear, and where I could provide for myself, and where expenses were low…so that no matter what the future brings, I would be secure in having a place to live and a way to make a living, etc.

Now I have that, and I’ve been insulated from all of the BS out there which is beyond my control. I live a steady life, regardless of the times or the way the artificial economy swings.

By contrast, putzes like the kid in the vid, just piss their money away, and 5 years from now, it could be very possible that he will have nothing, and be standing at a stoplight with a squeegee.

My first thought on seeing this was where does a 12-year-old kid get $80K to spend on a car? That’s what he looks and sounds like. Wonder if he still believes in Santa Claus. (Probably he puts the gunvermin in that role.)

It’s funny that so many of us – the smart set, I mean! – have had the same reaction to the video. I agree with Lib above – that the car was almost certainly financed and the kid is in debt up to his metrosexual ass!

Heck, even buyers of 2-3 even 5 year old used cars expect near new like experience from the cars they are buying.

And even cars that are typically seen as the lower end of new car quality like Chrysler and Kia mostly deliver on that experience.

And non fanboys will not tolerate this level of build quality, the kid on video repeatedly says that. They are lucky they can’t deliver those model 3’s, as buyers would be swamping the service departments. Its likely that will still happen if they manage to get more model 3’s out there. Because they don’t seem to be fixing the build quality, they will be far more interested in getting cars out the door.

I am guessing the kids car was either dropped on its side or it got hit on the side somehow pretty early in being built. It would explain the problems with the rear door trim not fitting and the noises that won’t go away. The door itself is likely fine, but doesn’t fit in the screwed up body frame and makes noises because of it.

You watch….either this kid, or someone just like him, is going to be the next “tragic victim” of the Tesla-Autopilot. You can already tell has has the disease, and it will continue to claim lives. Likewise, Musk and his programmers will continue to be held completely unaccountable for their deaths and injuries, as well as the collateral damage they cause. These are criminals with victims…unlike VW, and whoever else dares to merely end-run the “pigs” currently in power.

Here is the quintessential Telsa buyer. A “child”, who if he is lucky, has had 5 years experience driving anything other than his video-game cars! Where does someone this infantile get 80 Grand for a goddamned
full-scale electric toy?? Someone this young, this inexperienced and with this kind of financial ability makes the perfect “target” for Tesla’s bullshit marketing. Sadly, there are a whole hell of a lot of people with lots of disposable income who will be buying this crap. My son has a decent paying job, and has invested in 2 vintage Honda motorcycles, a Ford 9N farm tractor, and a 1964 Mooney 4-seater aircraft. He still likely has less money than half of what these rich “kids” are spending on these over-priced “miracle-mobiles”, but he at least knows the value of investing in reliable transportation, versus pissing away money on glitter bombs!
All I can say for this ding-a-ling and his Tesla is, A FOOL AND HIS MONEY ARE SOON PARTED!

I am guessing he is either in healthcare of some kind (or maybe the insurance end of it) or something in the computer business. Leaning towards healthcare as he is in Arizona not California. Also guessing his wife is also doing the same thing he is, for a dual high income no kids lifestyle.

We use to call them DINKs, Double Income No Kids This one probably an “internet entrepreneur” selling electronic “manure” while he sits on his lazy ass and collects a “paycheck”, most likely. That’s the “miracle” of the “information age”. How these people can have all this “information” (and money) and still be so goddamned stupid, is beyond me.

That 9N tractor will still be around (and usable) tens years from now- just as it has been for the last 70- but could you imagine that Tesla still being around 10 years from now? (Well, it may be around- but not usable nor worth anything).

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Eric started out writing about cars for mainstream media outlets such as The Washington Times, Detroit News and Free Press, Investors Business Daily, The American Spectator, National Review, The Chicago Tribune and Wall Street Journal.